


through darkness of mind

by canismaj0ris



Series: Kanera Week 2020 [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Kanan Jarrus Has PTSD, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Pre-Relationship, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:35:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26273452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canismaj0ris/pseuds/canismaj0ris
Summary: Kanan has nightmares. Hera helps.
Relationships: Kanan Jarrus/Hera Syndulla
Series: Kanera Week 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1903717
Comments: 4
Kudos: 34
Collections: Kanera Week 2020





	through darkness of mind

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings:** discussion of Kanan’s past, discussion of parental death. Graphic description of panic attacks and anxiety. Trauma-related nightmares, trauma-related alcoholism, possible emetophobia
> 
> Title from Godspeed by Frank Ocean
> 
> Title from Godspeed by Frank Ocean. I’m on a new medication that gives me constant anxiety and regular panic attacks - so this happened. **Also, I’m serious. Editing was hard because the panic felt too real - I tried to make it a little less so, but it’s still pretty detailed. Be careful, look after yourself.**
> 
> I am not responsible for your choice to/decision to read this.

The world blurred as he sat up too quickly, barely aware he’d fallen asleep. His heartbeat was loud in his eyes, and his stomach twisted. The air still smelt like burning flesh, both from fire and his lightsaber blade. 

The rolling acid of his stomach made him swallow hard. There was nothing in his stomach to bring up, but his body was still trying. 

Nightmare. It was a nightmare. 

Again. 

Kanan made himself breathe hard through his nose, counting in and out. Really, he should have been exhaling through his mouth, creating a perfect circle of breath but the nausea wasn’t going to let him. 

He was awake. Sweaty, shaking, and on the edge of hyperventilating, but awake. He was awake, and safe, and **alive**. 

Even if it didn’t feel like it. 

Mygeeto was almost a decade behind him. The constant feeling of darkness and despair still sat heavy on his soul, but it was over. Only its shadow remained, an outline only seen behind closed eyes. 

He was safe. 

Kanan forced his fingers to relax where they were digging into the hard duraplast of the table. 

The table. The kitchen table. 

He’d fallen asleep in the shared space again. That thing Hera had specifically told him not to do, especially when he could just go to bed - except he had no idea what time it was. They’d been aimlessly floating around space for the last week, and the standard planetary day-night cycle was already gone from his brain. 

The world around him moved sluggishly as he looked around, still blurred around the edges. Was it a side effect of waking up mid-sleep cycle, or was he on the edge of a panic attack? 

The vibrating under his skin suggested the latter, but maybe it was both. His toes were numb, and his fingers were sluggish and stiff as they tapped on the duraplast of the table. Something close to pins and needles ran up and down his legs. 

He ran through a quick battlefield assessment to make sure it was nothing worse - and then immediately slammed down on the reminder than he knew how to do that. 

Whatever it had been before, it was easing closer and closer to a panic attack. 

Kanan closed his eyes, watching the patterns swirl behind his eyes. He counted his breaths, just like he’d been taught dozens of times in his life. Inhale the recycled air, still cleaner than some planets, and exhale all of the bad feelings. 

The door at the other side of the room slid open. Kanan jumped. His muscles seized as he tried to size up the threat, forcing down the panic that rose in his throat. 

Even seeing Hera there didn’t stop the rising pain in his chest. His breathing was mostly under control now, but his heart was beating too fast. 

“Kanan?” Hera said quietly, hovering in the doorway. She overly still, her lekku held close to her back in a way that must have been uncomfortable. “Are you okay?” 

He could feel the _thu-thump thu-thump thu-thump_ behind his eyes, pushing everything out of focus. 

He nodded and was caught in a loop of motion. It made him rock back and forth, until he forced himself to slump forward against the table. His fingers started tapping, but that was a good enough reroute. “Sorry.” 

“Hey, no, it’s alright.” She moved a little closer, hands held up as if placating a wild animal. 

He felt like one. A herd animal trapped between a cliff and a predator, about to make a terrible choice. 

“Talk to me, love. What’s the matter?” 

The pet name _burned_ in a way he didn’t want to think about. He could hear it mirrored, in another accent, on another set of lips, in another time. The word was different, but the feeling was the same. 

He couldn’t shake his head, not without risking another loop. He had to speak. “Just… just a nightmare.” 

Hera nodded. “Do you want to talk about it?” 

“No,” his voice cracked, “thanks.” 

Her approach took too long, but when she sat down on the corner of the bench Kanan realised it was actually too quick. She was nowhere near him, but it was still too close. He could hear her boots tapping on the floor, rhythmic and irritating. 

Or maybe those were his boots. 

“Is there anything else I can do?” 

Kanan took the risk of shaking his head, just catching himself before the repetition kicked in. “It’s fine, I’m used to it.” 

The look Hera gave him was full of pity - or maybe his brain was lying. “Do you get nightmares a lot?” 

“I used to. They stopped when I started going to sleep too exhausted to dream.” He watched Hera settle herself back into the seat. “Or too drunk to.” 

She hummed. “So that’s why you drank so much?” 

It felt too obvious, and some awful part of him felt like she should have realised already. Why else would he have been drinking so much, if not to stop his nightmares? Did she think he’d just been doing that for fun? 

Or maybe it had been a fact of Kanan’s life for so long, it felt that obvious. That didn’t mean someone who’d known him only a few months would understand, not even someone who knew his darker secrets. 

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he repeated, which seemed to answer enough for Hera. She nodded, not pushing him any further but not letting the room around them fall quiet. She didn’t seem comfortable with the quiet. 

Or maybe he was just projecting. 

He couldn’t tell anymore. 

“After my mother died, I had nightmares all the time,” she admitted quietly, looking down at the table instead of towards him. It made his skin fizzle less. “I kept thinking that what happened to her would happen to me, or my father. The one day he’d go out, and never come back.” She traced an invisible pattern on the table, all straight lines and slight curves. “I only grew out of it when I realised it didn’t matter whether it happened to us - it had already happened to her. Worrying it would happen to my father wouldn’t do anything.” When Hera looked up again, she looked as anxious as Kanan felt. “It wouldn’t have stopped him, either.” 

Maybe (when he was able to sort through his thoughts without uncovering more panic) he would work his way through everything he’d just been told. So much of it was new, but it wouldn’t settle in his thoughts. It would have to wait. 

It would have made sense, if Hera thought he was afraid of dying. He hid himself almost completely, unwilling to do anything that would risk identifying him as a Jedi. But she’d seen through him instantly. 

Kanan dropped his head into his hands, half in disbelief that he was going to admit. “I keep seeing people I care about die. And not just the battles I was in. Some of them, I only heard about in stories, but I still see everyone die right in front of me,” he gestured to the centre of the room, but didn’t look up. 

There was a pause after he stopped talking, as if Hera wanted him to continue. He just shook his head - or shuffled it as much as he could without lifting his head - trying to make it obvious he wasn’t going to. 

She seemed to take the hint, at least a little. “Kanan, you were a child. There was nothing you could have done.” 

“I know,” he managed quietly, voice crackling. “But I still dream it.” 

Even leaning into his arms, his head felt heavy. Shuffling his legs felt like moving dead weight. The adrenaline had left his system as quickly as it entered, leaving nothing but exhausting in its wake. Kanan sighed. 

“I felt them, Hera. I felt the Force shrivel up and die, just like the rest of the Jedi Order.” 

She reached out a hand, leaving it at the edge of his line of sight but not any further. 

It took a moment for Kanan to realise she was asking for permission. 

Lifting his head, he dropped his arms to the table. The back of one hand landed in her open palm. 

Even with her lekku twitching in discomfort, Hera smiled softly, but not out of pity. More like mutual understanding. 

“The Force didn’t die, love. It’s everywhere, all around us.” She laughed softly, barely louder than breathing. “That’s how you explained it, right?” 

That had been months ago, just after they’d left Gorse. The fact she still remembered made Kanan’s chest flutter, but not with anxiety. 

“Well, it’s all around us, but it’s also in every living thing,” he corrected, practically hearing the repeated lesson in the back of his mind. “That’s the difference between the Unifying Force and the Living Force… I think.” He never really understood the difference, even after so many lessons. It was blurry and difficult to identify, and there was no one to correct him now. 

He could feel the spiral before he fell into it. Kanan huffed through his nose, forcing himself to focus on the feeling of air moving through his body. 

Hera didn’t notice. “If the Force is in all things, then it definitely can’t be dead. I’m not saying you didn’t feel something awful, but the Force didn’t die.” 

“The Order did.” 

“Not all of it.” Her eyes were sharp, focused on him. She looked like she had a plan. “You’re still here. And if you are, there has to be others. Even you can’t be self-centred enough to think you’re the only Jedi with the skills to survive the Purge.” 

But it wasn’t just the Purge. It was Knightfall. It was the person vendettas some of the Clones still held against their Generals. It was Kardoa, Mygeeto, Kaller. 

He had no energy to argue about it, nor to think about the different types of trauma he had, and how that affected his nightmares. He doubted he would ever have the energy for it. 

“It’s far more than that,” he just about managed, using all of his strength not to lie on the table again. “But I really don’t want to talk about it, Hera. Can I just go and sleep, please? I’m exhausted.” 

Hera squeezed his hand. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed.” He had no idea what she’d assumed, but he wasn’t going to ask. Then she stood up, gently pulling him from the bench. “Come on. I want to make sure you’re in bed before you fall asleep sat up again.” 

He didn’t argue as Hera lead him to the cabin he was staying in. It was starting to gather the clutter of somewhere well lived in, but the blankets stacked on the bed were the thing he looked forward to most. 

As soon as she deposited him on the bed, Kanan slumped sideways, pressing his back close to the wall. He didn’t bother stripping down, too aware of Hera in the room and too exhausted to work out clothes fastenings. 

Hera didn’t move, just watching him from the doorway again. “Shout of me if you need anything, okay? I know the intercom is by the door, but you don’t have to say anything. Just press it and I’ll come and check on you.” 

It Kanan far longer than it should have to understand, his adrenaline sapped brain not even sure what was words and what was just sounds. “You’re not staying?” 

She hesitated, before shaking her head. “No, of course not. Why, did you think I would?” 

He tossed the idea of her leaving around in his head before coming to his conclusion. 

“Please stay.” 

It sounded like a beg, and perhaps it was. He knew all too well the risks of sleeping alone. At least with someone else there, a heartbeat near him, he’d know everything was okay. That they were somewhere safe. 

Hera hesitated before moving into the room. She hesitated again after a few steps, moving to push the flight suit trousers from the body. Underneath were the dark leggings she wore while they were to make up for the lack of heat while they were in space. 

As soon as she sat on the edge of the bed, she pulled upright Kanan to remove his jumper, chucking it onto the floor. She moved to pull off his boots and put his own hands on his belt to make him remove it himself. He just about managed it in the time it took Hera to undo two sets of laces. 

Then she curled up beside him, back pressed to his chest. One of his arms looped across her waist automatically, holding her close. 

She was cool, surprisingly so. Did Twi’leks run cooler than Humans? 

“Try and get some sleep,” she said quietly. 

He hummed his understanding, the world around him warm and soft. “I’ll try. Don’t leave while I’m asleep, okay?” 

If he’d been more awake, perhaps he would have noticed Hera stiffen, and then relax back into his body. “Of course not.” 

His “goodnight” was muffled in her shoulder, making Hera laugh quietly. 

“Sweet dreams, Kanan.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Feel free to kudos/comment if you enjoyed it <3
> 
> You can also find the fic on my tumblr: gaystardust.tumblr.com  
> Or come chat to me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/majorisbooks  
> You can see more Kanera Week content on their tumblr: https://kaneraweek.tumblr.com/


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